Homepage link to forum

Hi All,

Probably a very simple question but today I noticed that when I click the link to my forum from the main site I see a PR5, however if I click on any pages within the forum I see PR0.

First question - is this normal, I'm sure I've noticed other sites with forums and the forum pages have some PR.

Second Question - the links from the site to the forum were pointing at www.mysite.com/forum this had PR but www.mysite.com/forum/index.php had none. I have changed the link to point at .....index.php now, will this make any difference or is it just that a forum will not pass PR around itself?

Thanks

 

1. Google typically assigns PR per page, meaning that forum threads that have not been indexed or assigned pageranks will not show any. Sometimes, this can change for dynamic pages.

2. Google will view /forum/ as a different page compared to /forum/index.php. Some try to avoid duplicate content penalties by using mod-rewrite to redirect one to the other.

 

I heard that PHPBB is pretty bad at passing PR without some fairly serious mods.

So do you know if theres any benefit of linking to Forum/index or just /forum ?

Thanks

 

I would say you are better off with just /forum/, since it limits the keywords in the URL. I seriously doubt you would notice any significant difference however.

 

This is important. Make sure you 301 redirect all versions of your pages to the right version.

 

Yeah, very good idea to redirect...

 

And be sure to install one of the many SEO mods available for phpBB. It will turn garbage like viewtopic.php?a=8&b=44&sid=jhnbrr4559 into something like topic-title-of-forum-topic.html
Much easier and more likely for search engines to index that.

 

Dynamic phpBB forum pages tend to get lower PR toolbar assigned, but they still rank in the SERPs which is ultimately the most important thing.

 

thanx for info

 

People keep talking about 301 rfedirects but I have no idea what they are!

Could someone shed some light please?

Thanks

 

Hi Steve,

301 redirects are simply part of your website's code that redirects visitors from one page on your site to another. They're typically used when a Webmaster changes the navigation structure of his or her site, and wants to make sure that the pages listed in the SERPs redirect visitors to the new pages - for example, www.mysite.com redirects to www.mysite.com/index.

Here's a link for creating 301 redirects that I found in another thread:

http://camtech2000.net/Pages/RedirectEm.html

HTH,
Sam

 

Hi, I'll download and have a play with that. However I can access my Homepage from site.co.uk site.co.uk/index.htm www.site.co.uk and www.site.co.uk/index.htm which one should they be pointing at?

And will I have to do the same for all pages or just the HP and the info kinda filters through?

 

Hi Steve,

I'd suggest using the page with higher placement in the SERPs as your target, with a 301 redirect pointing from the other page to it. If they're of equal ranking, then it doesn't really matter.

By the way, I've researched the link I provided ( http://camtech2000.net/Pages/RedirectEm.html ) a bit further, and it's just one of numerous free Webmaster-related downloads available at the site. Just thought I'd advise for anyone reading this thread - may be something of value there...

HTH,
Sam